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I already had accounts with online movie and television services like Netflix and Hulu, but I also needed a way to access these services on my television. My Xbox 360 has ended up becoming a major part of my media center. But has it been worth the effort and cost?
Putting Microsoft hardware in the living room was a primary goal of the original Xbox. But it's only recently that this has translated into a device that can serve as a media center. That's because the Xbox 360 has received frequent software updates that adds access to new services.
Are these options sufficient for most people? I think the answer is yes, but only if you subscribe to both Netflix and Hulu Plus. I've spent most of my time getting by with only a Netflix subscription, but I also tend not to be concerned with watching current TV shows. If you are thinking of going this route I recommend giving Hulu Plus a whirl and then dropping it if you do not use it.
There's more to a media center than the content you can access. How you access it is also important. A frustrating, slow or unstable user interface can ruin everything. Just ask people who bought the Boxee Box the day it came out.
Unfortunately, Microsoft seems to have served the current rendition of the interface before it was fully baked. It uses the Metro UI, and it certainly looks good. However, navigation could be more responsive. I find the Netflix app to be particularly frustrating because the interface often freezes as it is loading a video, which is a problem if you hit the wrong option and want to go back.
Another issue that might burn your bottom is the presence of advertisements. As we'll discuss more in a moment, using the Xbox 360's online features isn't free. Yet you still are presented with advertisements for movie trailers, games and services.? These ads are not intrusive, but the presence of them in a service you're already paying for is a bummer.
Microsoft's terms of service might be aggravating, as well. Their most recent version declared that anyone using the service is entirely subject to arbitration and can't participate in class action lawsuits. So if Microsoft messes up and loses your data to some third party, you're out of luck.
One of the main reasons why you might be interested in kicking your television service out the door is the price. Even basic plans with a limited channel selection are often priced at $20 or $30 per month.
Is the Xbox 360 cheaper? Let's assume that you do not have an Xbox 360 and that you want to sign up for Netflix and Hulu Plus. We will also assume that the cost of Internet is not included, since you would have it anyway. Here's how the pricing breaks down.
You may end up with some other hardware costs if you decide to buy peripherals like the miniature keyboard or the media remote, but they are not massively expensive. Even Kinect, which can be used for gesture-based navigation, is only $99 on its own.
There are competitors, and some of them are extremely good. One crowd favorite is the Roku. At a price of $99 for the most powerful version (the Roku 2 XS), the hardware is much less expensive. It also offers a wider range of service. The Xbox 360 may have Netflix and Hulu Plus, but it is missing Amazon Instant Video. And it will always be missing Amazon Instant Video because the service competes with Microsoft's own Zune Marketplace.
If that is your only goal, my answer is no. The Xbox 360 has access to a fair amount of content, but it also requires an Xbox Live subscription and the hardware is expensive. Competitors like Roku are less expensive.
You shouldn't ignore the Xbox 360's other features, however. Most obvious of these is the fact it plays games. Even if you're not a hardcore gamer you may find a couple of titles that are appealing to you. This can easily tilt the scales back in the console's favor. There are benefits to the 360, as well. It can play media files from computers on your network or through built-in apps, it can be used as a DVD player, and it offers nifty peripherals that enhance your experience.
The decision really comes down to games. If you like to play console games, buying an Xbox 360 instead of a Roku is obviously a better choice. If you don't, save yourself some dough and go for a purpose built media center. You'll receive more for less. Do you agree?
In a sea of smart TVs, and cheap streaming devices, does the HTPC still fit in? I recently found myself faced with the decision of either upgrading my old HTPC, or abandoning it altogether. Ultimately, I did decide to build a new computer for my entertainment center, but that approach may not be the best for your own media needs.
A HTPC is a full blown computer, and is priced accordingly. You can buy one pre-built or customize your own. Budgets vary wildly as you shop around with around $1,000 sufficiently satisfying a variety of entertainment needs.
I realized that I could use transmission remote, flirc usb, a wireless xbox one dongle to use my game controller, and some handy happs that let me launch bash scripts from my phone. I realized the potential of creating power HTPC builds repurposing computers from the junk pile that are great for linux support.
with some handy scripting and being able to utilize these skills I have acquired over the years I have full functionality of being able to ditch the keyboard in the loung or bedroom for an htpc build and entirely use my phone to remotely ad downloads, a script that runs youtube-dl in the background to save music I add to a playlist, remotely add torrents from my phone, and launch retroarch for some nice emulation on PS1, DOS games, Dreamcast and PSP games.
My sole purpose is to archive terrobytes of media over time to the point where years later it will become lost media and hard to find. A 100tb NAS to store and backup every single TV Show, Game, Movie etc for years to come.
I am running HTPCs in the house for a number of reasons, including the ability to use a nice TV with lightening damaged HDMI. A program above the Plex HTPC program would allow streaming sites and other apps to be selected with my Gimibox keypad without resorting to the air mouse or keyboard. It would also be nice for this application to be Linux/Windows agnostic. I have installed tools for Java development and am about to start coding.
I pulled this chapter together from dozens of sources that were at times somewhat contradictory. Facts on the ground change over time and depend who is telling the story and what audience they're addressing. I tried to create as coherent a narrative as I could. If there are any errors I'd be more than happy to fix them. Keep in mind this article is not a technical deep dive. It's a big picture type article. For example, I don't mention the word microservice even once :-)
Given our discussion in the What is Cloud Computing? chapter, you might expect Netflix to serve video using AWS. Press play in a Netflix application and video stored in S3 would be streamed from S3, over the internet, directly to your device.
Another relevant factoid is Netflix is subscription based. Members pay Netflix monthly and can cancel at any time. When you press play to chill on Netflix, it had better work. Unhappy members unsubscribe.
The client is the user interface on any device used to browse and play Netflix videos. It could be an app on your iPhone, a website on your desktop computer, or even an app on your Smart TV. Netflix controls each and every client for each and every device.
Everything that happens before you hit play happens in the backend, which runs in AWS. That includes things like preparing all new incoming video and handling requests from all apps, websites, TVs, and other devices.
In 2007 Netflix introduced their streaming video-on-demand service that allowed subscribers to stream television series and films via the Netflix website on personal computers, or the Netflix software on a variety of supported platforms, including smartphones and tablets, digital media players, video game consoles, and smart TVs.
Netflix succeeded. Netflix certainly executed well, but they were late to the game, and that helped them. By 2007 the internet was fast enough and cheap enough to support streaming video services. That was never the case before. The addition of fast, low-cost mobile bandwidth and the introduction of powerful mobile devices like smart phones and tablets, has made it easier and cheaper for anyone to stream video at any time from anywhere. Timing is everything.
Building out a datacenter is a lot of work. Ordering equipment takes a long time. Installing and getting all the equipment working takes a long time. And as soon they got everything working they would run out of capacity, and the whole process had to start over again.
The long lead times for equipment forced Netflix to adopt what is known as a vertical scaling strategy. Netflix made big programs that ran on big computers. This approach is called building a monolith. One program did everything.
What Netflix was good at was delivering video to their members. Netflix would rather concentrate on getting better at delivering video rather than getting better at building datacenters. Building datacenters was not a competitive advantage for Netflix, delivering video is.
It took more than eight years for Netflix to complete the process of moving from their own datacenters to AWS. During that period Netflix grew its number of streaming customers eightfold. Netflix now runs on several hundred thousand EC2 instances.
The advantage of having three regions is that any one region can fail, and the other regions will step in handle all the members in the failed region. When a region fails, Netflix calls this evacuating a region.
The header image is meant to intrigue you, to draw you into selecting a video. The idea is the more compelling the header image, the more likely you are to watch a video. And the more videos you watch, the less likely you are to unsubscribe from Netflix.
The first thing Netflix does is spend a lot of time validating the video. It looks for digital artifacts, color changes, or missing frames that may have been caused by previous transcoding attempts or data transmission problems.
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